Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 503 Ready to Return to Beijing (Part [-])
Jinghua Trading Company's opponent is at sea.

It has been nearly eight years since Gao Yushi built Tianjin Private Port in the last years of Longqing. During these eight years, Gao Yushi once again showed the world the magic of golden hands—even more than once.

First of all, the rise of Tianjin Port is jaw-dropping.Originally, according to others' thinking, the so-called paralleling of water and sea is nothing more than transferring some tasks that cannot be completed by water transportation to sea, and water transportation is a loss-making business, so the sea transportation should also be unprofitable.

Is water transport a loss-making business?It must be, this point is very clear and pragmatic. In his previous life, he had read several monographs on water transportation in the Ming Dynasty in his spare time, and all of them believed that water transportation must be a loss-making business, and there are detailed data to support it.

In fact, water transportation in the Ming Dynasty was not a profitable business in itself, and the Ming court never regarded the cost issue as a major issue.

For example, as far as grain grain is concerned, despite the high cost of transportation, the imperial court still sells grain in the capital city at a price lower than the initial price from time to time. Is this because of cost considerations?Obviously not, this is considered from the perspective of the stability of the Gyeonggi region.

The labor cost, especially in maintaining the waterways of the Cao River, was often not considered by the water transport authorities.In fact, while the whole country is doing its best to transport grain to the north, private businessmen are transporting grain to the south in the Huaihe and Huguang areas.

Gao Yushi was most impressed by the issue of water transportation when he said in a certain monograph: "In 1632, the Minister of the Ministry of Households reported to the Ming court that a large amount of taxes paid in kind had not yet been collected; including those paid by Suzhou on the list. Honey, its value is less than 28 taels of silver. This petition was submitted when the national tax arrears exceeded 1700 million taels of silver.

In addition, coin circulation channels can also reflect the lack of system management. In 1592, Wanping County, which belonged to Beijing, delivered goods to 27 military stations and institutions (some of which were located on the Great Wall) stipulated by the central government.However, all the items are worth less than 2000 taels of silver; some of them are worth less than 50 taels, and some of them are only worth one or two taels.We are not surprised by this. On the issue of Caohe management, the bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty also set up many costly and wasteful procedures. "

The Caohe River is also the Grand Canal, which itself is a man-made river. Its operating efficiency is not only closely related to the sediment concentration of the Yellow River, the water level of Gaoyou Lake, and the freezing season in North China, but also depends to a considerable extent on the people of the time. views and responses to various issues.

Caohe occupies a prominent position and has always been the only main line of transportation to the capital. What is the main reason?What is the quantity and variety of goods transported on the Caohe River?How to manage Caohe?How can we not lose money?
Gao Yushi is very clear that it is not the natural environment that really determines this series of issues, but the ideology that dominates the court.

But Gao Yushi still can't solve this problem for the time being, not to mention that he is just a juren now, even if he is now the capital assistant.To solve this problem, he not only needs to become the chief assistant, but also needs the full support of the emperor, a lot of former students, political allies, and even a high reputation among scholars, otherwise he will not be able to deal with the ruling and opposition parties at all. Up and down the voice of opposition.

Therefore, he could only transfer part of the water transportation function to the sea by avoiding the most important ones first—this was only possible with Gao Gong, the chief assistant Sanbo who supported Kaihai at the beginning.

However, after transferring this part of the water transport function, can Tianjin Port be developed?Of course not.

If only relying on this part of the transshipment business of seaborne grain, the highly pragmatic Tianjin private port can at best guarantee that it will not starve itself to death, and it is definitely not enough to develop.Therefore, Gao Pragmatism prepared a supporting method early in the morning, which is... attracting investment.

Of course, it is not to attract investment to build factories in Tianjin, but to improve the facilities of Tianjin Port to attract more southern merchants to sell their goods to the capital and to the entire north by sea!At the same time, the goods from the north were transported back to the south through Tianjin Port for sale.Only by forming such a thriving north-south trade boom, as the owner of Tianjin Port, can he obtain sufficient profits from it.

At the same time, Gao Pragmatism is not limited to the port itself. After he started making profits in Tianjin Port, he began to target more excellent ports, and at the same time started to build his own shipyard.

He still followed the old routine, that is, buying wasteland in advance to build a new port in the Bohai Rim area.The new ports that have been completed so far include Yingkou Port at the estuary of the Liaohe River in Liaodong (this is Gao Yushi’s name changed for convenience), Tangshan Port near the estuary of the Luan River, Laizhou Port in the north of Shandong, and Jiaozhou in the southeast of Shandong Hong Kong (later Qingdao).

Among them, Tianjin Port, Tangshan Port, Yingkou Port and Laizhou Port are the four pillar ports of his "Bohai Rim Business Circle" plan.

Because Tianjin Port is backed by the capital, its core position is affirmative, so its scale is also the largest; the main significance of Tangshan Port is to export the products of the three major factories in Kaiping, both for civilian and military use, but because the goods are relatively single, the market is still limited. Therefore, this port is currently the smallest in scale; Laizhou Port is mainly responsible for the transfer point of buying and selling goods to Shandong, because the current economic and population core of Shandong is mainly in the inland area of ​​Jinan in later generations, and Laizhou is relatively close; as for Jiaozhou Port In fact, it is mainly an "anchor" for Gao Shishi to expand southward. Its commercial value itself is relatively limited, but it also has another important task, which is to become Gao Shishi's first shipbuilding base.

The geographical advantages of Qingdao Port are naturally unparalleled. In addition to being a natural deep-water port with complete natural conditions for sheltering from wind and waves, it also has an advantage in its location itself-not far to the north is North China, and not far to the south is North China. Jiangnan.

Gao Wushi set up his first shipbuilding base here, hoping to build an all-round shipbuilding base that can produce not only flat-bottomed sand ships suitable for the Bohai Sea, but also sharp-bottomed seagoing ships suitable for the East China Sea and even the South China Sea—after all, he is in To be a "private enterprise", you must consider the cost issue. Of course, it would be great if you can use one place for multiple purposes.

After the completion of these major ports, the business circle around the Bohai Sea has actually laid a good foundation.

Today, leather goods, pearls, wild ginseng, etc. in Liaodong can be easily transported to Yingkou through the Liaohe River, and then depart from Yingkou, transported to Tianjin and then transferred to the south.

Silk, porcelain, cotton cloth and even grain from the south can also be directly transported to ports in the north to meet the needs of Beizhili, Shandong, Liaodong and other places.

The iron products and cement of the three major factories in Kaiping can also meet the needs of all parts of the north and even the south of the Yangtze River through Tangshan Port...

Such a revitalized port circle, the berthing fee alone can make Gao Pragmatic earn a lot of money, not to mention the many warehouse leases and storefront leases in the port, all of which are good businesses with huge profits.

Especially after Gao Yushi unified these businesses under the name of "Jinghua Maritime Trade", Jinghua Trading Company will naturally not be able to stand out!
(End of this chapter)